Shake
by Mara93
Summary: Season 3 One Parter: Scene extender of the night Haley comes back home. Nathan and Haley through all their distance think how only one person can make them shake: each other.


_**~Shake~**_

This is for The Romantics…and dedicated to Bethany Joy Lenz and James Lafferty and the team of writers and producers at OTH who last Wednesday…totally inspired me. Beautiful performances.

This takes place after Haley visits Nathan's room in the season 3 premiere…and it has some flashbacks too…

~~**~~

_"One day I wrote her name upon the strand, __  
__But came the waves and washed it away: __  
__Again I wrote it with a second hand, __  
__But came the tide, and made my pains his prey…"_  
~Edmund Spenser~

~~**~~

_She still made him shake…_

_Still…_

She'd had that power, that essence, from the first kiss she ignited his lips with, the first time he lay in her bed with her, the first time…

Their bodies became one.

_Shake…_

Just thinking of it now made him tremble all over. Thinking of her so nearby…just rooms away the distance between them now. It was a whole heck of a lot better than her being miles away like she had been for so long.

And it was a curse.

That power…maybe _curse_ would be a better word for it.

Months ago when he asked her to be his wife he wouldn't have felt this way. But months ago she hadn't walked out their apartment door and left his heart shaking so hard it nearly shattered.

He laid his head back upon his pillow now, feeling the slight breeze blowing through his window. The breeze…he'd felt it that day she jumped up into his arms and surprised him…felt it that day they ran through the rain to get back to his apartment…

What would become _their apartment._ _A faded memory now._

He let out a sigh…his breath shaking with it. His eyes were already adjusted to the darkness. He'd been lying here for maybe hours of time passed since she left his room. His eyes open…searching the endless high ceiling above him. It was the ceiling of his parents' house. He'd preferred the ceiling of _their_ home.

What he lay in now felt more like a _house_ than a home. For too long he'd not felt he really even had a home. His first home had been with her. And then she made it shake…made it rattle…made it fall apart.

His body shifted on top of the large bed now. It was too big to be slept in alone. It wasn't meant for only one person. Not even her little bed had been. A part of him smiled inside now as he remembered back then…those days seemed years ago now, and yet they hadn't even been a year hardly. He met her through trickery. He wanted to use her. But she wasn't to be used. She was stronger inside and outside than she appeared. She was strong and yet…

_So unsure._ Maybe even as unsure as he had been.

He hadn't noticed it then though. He'd first noticed that night she came to say finally she would help him, that she would assist him in his school work, he noticed she wore nearly nothing on her face. And yet… she seemed to have a glow that not even a thousand girls with heavy makeup would have. He'd noticed…but he hadn't reacted. He'd kept it in…kept it so far in that his mind hadn't even really realized that well…the thought had even drifted through it. He let it fade…and then he met her at the pier. She made remarks that made him smile…brought something to him he didn't normally feel. He was alien to it. _Calm._ And yet with that calm she also made him start to question. Question. _Question._

She believed that a person could not go through life without questioning meaning, without thinking of actions, without understanding who they were. He'd been too afraid, too annoyed, too angry and confused, to admit to her…he hadn't the foggiest who _he_ was. Was he his father, domineering, verbally abusively cold manipulating? Was he like his mother, sometimes there and sometimes not, lying, weak?

He didn't know. He didn't _want_ to know. It was easier to hang onto, to cling to inadequacies and lies, to meaningless sex and a relationship that was detrimental not only to the girl he was putting through it, but also himself. He didn't want to admit he questioned what he did to his brother. He didn't want to admit that when she got upset with him for screwing up, like he had at the restaurant, when his friends came…he simply acted the way he did because…he was lost. _He didn't know who he was._ He'd believed for so long, for so many summers since one agonizing summer, that his way in life was already paved. _No_…not paved…cemented…grounded…_nailed_ into the earth…with sharp needles of forever…of finality…that he was to be…what he feared the most…what his heart screamed to get away from. He was to be…

_Half alive._

A fragment of a person. A shallow hollow thing that one day would crumble away like dust.

He hadn't known how to tell her that though. So when she challenged him, and like always his words escaped him in her presence, he did all he knew to do. _He kissed her._ Short. Sweet. Simple.

And yet it made him shake. To wait. To stand there and see what she would say. What she would do. Her answer made his sigh hard and heavy. He got ready to walk away. But he couldn't so he told her…the truth. He told her that he kissed her because he had wanted to. It sounded possessive probably to her he thought afterwards. She would hate him for that. So he tried to show her with his face he meant it. _He'd wanted to._ For so long he'd wanted to. His lips had whispered to him at night…_what will it feel like to kiss her?_ This girl who dresses more plainly than any girl you've ever been with? _And yet there is nothing plain about her._ Every essence of her sparks with life, with jewels of beauty, with life and wonder…with promise and…

And then she kissed him. She kissed him back. He'd nearly fallen as he felt her jump to him. He'd nearly gone down, but he willed his arms to wrap around her instead and hold her close. And her kiss…that kiss…

_Oh God that kiss…_

_It made him shake._

It was the first time…after little tremors and trembles. He really did shake with her. He'd never believed in that. He'd hear older people say stupid things like how touched they were with each other, how they brought a spark of hope to each other, how they loved each other so much they couldn't bare to be apart…how…how…

Stupid expressions of sappy unrealistic love. He'd always mocked those kinds of words. Before that day he would mock his thoughts right now.

But it was simple…_she made him shake._

His whole body had tremored that day, and no, not little tiny shakes. Not little things that didn't cause much to happen. No…his heart, his arms, his legs…his chest…every inch of his skin…every part inside him…was brought to shake that day. It happened after when she wrapped her arms around him the night he left the hospital, left it to be with her. He just needed her. _He needed her._ Oh, he hated admitting that. Or he had hated it before. But he couldn't deny it with her. She touched him and he just smiled, felt a light rush over his person. Felt a heat rise in his body. And no…it wasn't some temporary moment of lust. It wasn't what it was before, because before her, no one made him shake.

Sex after sex after sex. But it didn't matter. He never felt his body shake. He never felt his outside…his insides shake, his mind…his heart. Not til her. Not til her body came up against his that day she jumped him…and didn't give him just a short kiss, but a long one…when he fell and seeked her face before the lights turned off in his eyes. She made his body and mind feel things it never had before.

It was terrifying and exhilarating. It was more a rush than winning a basketball game and being carried on the shoulders of his teammates. It was a rush that drugs could never endure a body with. It was something all new and novel entirely.

And when she seemed to want to change he whispered to her, he gently told her, _no_. No…he didn't want her different. He wanted what he first met. He didn't know…he didn't think then enough, how she maybe hadn't even found herself yet.

He didn't think that because then he had believed she was stronger. So much stronger than him. He left his parents and she was there for him. She helped him see the apartment they would soon call their shared home. She helped him break away from those parents he felt too much hurt from…too much abandonment…too much pressure. She was his friend as much as his girlfriend. She was what that word should mean. She was _girl_, all female, all beautiful. And _friend_, caring, understanding, listening. She had listened to him so many times then he'd never thought maybe she wanted to be the one to talk sometimes…to really talk. Sure he had asked her a few times, but never enough. His mind had been on too much of what was happening to him. And she, the giving person she was, allowed that. She wrapped away anything about herself and focused just on him. Her heart was open to him, to helping him, never to herself. And so he did all he could do.

He put no pressure on her ever. He couldn't. His heart told him every day, every night, every hour, minute and second of the day, that if he forced her in any way, that if he even did it with just persuasive words, made her think she wanted something she didn't, he'd lose her. She was so strong and wonderful, and yet sweetly innocent too. And vulnerable. He saw that the night he got her to finally see her best friend, his brother, lying in a hospital bed. He got her to go and then when they returned to her home he talked, talked and then heard it…sobs that were stabs into his heart. He turned to see her tears falling down her face like the rain would fall on cold nights. He moved to the bed and cradled her into his arms, holding her til she fell asleep, and then he still just wrapped a blanket around both of them and held her once more, in her sleep.

It had hit him then…not like just one solid blow, not some big sign in the sky flashing neon lights, but a subtle hit…subtle and yet too strong and forceful against his mind…rushing into his heart. He loved her. He loved her. _He loved her._ To love had always scared him. But to love her felt gentle and sweet. It had to be right.

She started acting in sometimes strange ways. She marked her body with a number that was his. And he finally got the courage to utter from his lips what his heart had known for what seemed destinies. Maybe it had never known feeling until her. Maybe his heart had been waiting for her. He told her and heard her echo the words with happiness. He told her and knew then what he didn't tell her yet.

He'd ask her a question of life…of forever. But for now…he'd just wait. His heart would. It would keep shaking in happiness and wonder. For there wasn't a single kiss she washed his lips with that didn't make his body shake.

One fight, one argument, another after one before…and he waited til he couldn't take it anymore. He sat down in the rain, feeling it beat down upon his face, waiting for her to come home. He wanted to share _his_ home with her. How could he not want it?

One night more of too much rowdiness before at his place and he shook his head. Escaped. Walked down the road…started to run down it, sprint. Made his way to her window, regretfully woke her. Gently silenced the cry she nearly let out. He whispered to her who it was and then when she invited him to, he lay down next to her and fell asleep nearly on the first moment his head hit the pillow. He'd liked her bed. Even as small as it was, short for his long body, he'd never felt it was cramped or uncomfortable. It was warm and smelled like her…like nature and tiny little showers of happy flowers. It seemed so silly to think of it that way, but it was the best explanation he had. For he had no real understandable words for it. Her bed contained her, so it was heaven…home. It was the beautiful Elsewhere she sang to him that night long ago.

It seemed eons ago…it was too far away. It was too painful to think of now. Now when she slept too far away. Her distance was too great, even in the same house as he lay in. It was too spaced apart. They were too far apart. It made no sense. But it was reality…_reality of now…_

It hadn't been, the night of the day he joined hands with her, and vowed to always keep her safe…always love her…no matter what the oceans decided…what the sun did…no matter if the earth ceased to spin…he'd love her. He'd never stop. He never had stopped. He loved…loved her now.

Love was such a thing of wonder…love was such a stab in the body. Love hurt. He knew it well. Love pained. Love tortured. As it showered a person with rains of happiness, it pierced them with needles of agony. That night though…his hands had found her body…hers his. They waited til nothing constricted their skin anymore. Until the blanket they had was each other's arms…legs…

And it was no longer sex. It wasn't some act of lust. It wasn't a big bam bang. It was something that lasted so long, that it made him shake. And shake. _And shake._

She'd felt it that night. His wife. His new wife. His new life. She'd asked him gently…

_"Are you okay…you're shaking."_

He'd sighed, closing his eyes, trying to move in closer to her, but if he could possibly move any nearer her, their bodies would have no separation at all. They'd be entirely inside each other. She was that close to him already. His words came out with tremoring emotion. He couldn't hold it in. He didn't know how to anymore. And it was okay. She didn't leave him. She didn't ridicule him. She didn't push him. She didn't push him away or push him toward something so hard that he flailed for balance. She only…_surrounded him_. She was in everything he breathed now. She was his light. She was the wind. She was his home. _"I-I'm…o-okay…I just…"_ He stopped there before he let out with a shaking whisper. _"I love you Haley James Scott. I love you…my wife."_

Her tears had come then. They weren't something that ever came out loudly. Haley cried softly always. She had the gentlest quietest cry. It was like she didn't want to bother anyone with the sound of loud tears, of sobs that yelled out too loud. So she never cried with force. It was always small and soft. And then his tears came too, before kissed her, feeling his body shake, feeling hers shake, as it had when he felt her thighs wrapped around him…as their bodies had rocked with the motion of love. Shaking together…he'd moved away from the soft kiss afterward, touching her face and wiping away her tears. Feeling her wipe away his. And then she slept.

He tried to say awake as long as he could. He wanted to just watch her…watch her laying there with such beauty it didn't seem real. But then he fell to sleep to, before he woke first in the morning and once again just watched her…_watched her_.

Whispering before she finally did wake. _"I love you…Forever…"_

It had been so right. So perfect. Laughing as they tried to find the right message for their answering machine. As they cooked dinner together even though he was clueless at first in using a measuring cup. As they fought over which of his sports posters would go down and which could stay up. _It was heaven though._ Their heaven. Or so he thought.

It all had seemed to rush by too fast, before the night came that rocked his heart so hard he felt it would tear out of his body. He'd left, he gave her an ultimatum. And then he realized what he'd done. He felt what he had said to her, and he ran, he raced. He ran harder than he ever had. His body burned from it, as his heart could only shake.

_Please let her be there still….please please please_…he prayed. He'd go with her. They'd work it out. Somehow they would, and all would be okay. It would all be alright.

But it wasn't. She left him. She left. She left. _She left…_

He'd thrown it at it that night. He threw what he encouraged her in, threw it and made it hit what symbolized them together. He wanted to shatter it. He did. He shattered both things. He watched as they crashed to the floor and lay in ruins. He brokenly sighed and tried to feel…to cry…to scream.

But nothing would come out. All he could do was…

_SHAKE._

And now she lay in a room just minutes of distance away from him. And he couldn't go to her. He couldn't be with her. He could only…

Shake.

~~**~~

_"No way to see him __  
__On this moonless night- __  
__I lie awake longing, burning, __  
__Breasts racing fire, __  
__Heart in flames."_  
~Ono no Komachi~

~~**~~

_He still made her shake…_

Even now as she lay in a guest bed, she could feel it, how he made her body shake, how it still did now as it remembered his touch. Her body remembered everything of him. It had all those nights on the road away from him, her heart crying to her…how could you have left that? _What kind of idiot are you?_

She felt a tear fall down her face now and she pushed it away. She wanted to feel him again. For one moment tonight she had felt him. Felt him like…

Oh God…

It was torture to be so far away…and yet so close. To know he slept where she couldn't go, where she couldn't follow. Well she could, if she didn't respect his wishes. She could follow him to his room now, she could go back and lie on top of him, kiss him again and again, and he probably wouldn't push her away physically, but his heart pushed at her now. His heart she'd broken.

She hated knowing that. In some strange ways it was almost worse hearing from him that he still loved her…that he didn't want to love her, but he did. She heard his words that way. He didn't want to love her. _He didn't want to love her._ She hurt him too much. She hadn't meant to though. _She hadn't meant to._ She hadn't meant to fall…

_In love._

It was a funny thing…love. It didn't sing out when it came, it didn't let out a loud alarm. It didn't announce its presence. It just kind of drifted in on the wind. It rose with the sun in the morning. It lingered in the stars at night. _It lived in the heart._ It dwelled there. But she hadn't known then it was just waiting to open up inside her heart.

She'd believed she had all she needed…for the time being. She had her best friend, her parents, other friends…maybe not many, but she had enough. She had plenty. Compare her home life to his. It was like paradise what she had. She was smart, did well in school, well liked by her teachers and the kids she tutored, respected by enough. She dressed simply and uniquely. She didn't care her hair might not be perfect one day. It was fine. She was fine. Everything was just fine.

_Fine…_he accused her of being high on herself once, accused her expression of _fine_ as being some kind of cover-up of what lay beneath. With his smirking only half revealing what he was feeling. Little had she known, he was right. She was only fine. Fine wasn't enough. She just didn't realize it at the time, but fine was only half of being happy. _She_ was only half of being happy. Her life was only half of what it was meant to be. As normal and easy it seemed, as content she was in it, there was a person who would come into her life and see what lay beneath all that _fine._ He would see it, touch it, reveal it…and in the process…_make her shake._

At first she'd used her best friend as her excuse. He was a good one. He was a believable one. He was a true one. She was concerned about her best friend. It made sense. He, her best friend's brother, was just a jerk. He pulled pranks and did things she didn't like…

_He…_

Something made her unable to stop thinking about him after he admitted to her, he was failing. He was a failing student. He needed help, and for some reason he'd asked her. It was strange. She knew he was using her. She knew he was up to something. But even as she knew, she never saw him act it out. He took her hand in his at the docks, a surprisingly gentle hand that only mildly held onto her, not grabbing, not forcing, not tightly gripping…just softly touching her. He put a plastic bracelet around her wrist and what did she do? She wore it for days. She put it away with her most precious things when she didn't wear it. She kept it and spent nights just laying in bed, staring at it, wondering at it, lingeringly remembering his hands, big hands, but gentle hands, holding her small one, and putting that bracelet on.

He never carried it out. Somewhere along the way he seemed to forget any original plan. And it didn't surprise her. Truth be told she hadn't known or even tried to find out just how much the original plan had been. She wouldn't find that out until later. For now, she gave him a special box to help him on his test. She smiled as she presented it to him and then left him alone. Alone, before the night she was humiliated with that box, hurt by it. He hurt her. Even as she knew he didn't really plan it out or anything, even as she knew it upset him to see her upset, she felt he hurt her. He had. Because he made her start to care.

She hadn't wanted to care. Her life was orderly and organized. From the second he entered it, he made it shake around instead. He took away the organization and orderliness. And he made her care. _He made her scare._ Scare away…and yet she couldn't completely stay away. She'd cried that night. She didn't really cry much that often. But that night she cried. She cried and fell into her bed with tears falling down her face. She was so scared he would upset everything she was comfortable with. She was so scared to care for him. Because she did. And yet…_did he?_

The day he kissed her proved the truth. His kiss was too short though and so she made hers much longer. She held onto him and delighted at the moment she felt his arms wrap around her body. It wasn't unfamiliar, even though they'd really known each other only weeks. It wasn't awkward, even though he was so different from her. It was this sweet little paradise. It was this safe haven to feel him holding her up, to know he was protecting her right at that moment. And even as his hands seemed to gentle over her back, his lips were something else entirely. As he recovered from his first startlement at her return kiss, he kissed her back with longing, he explored her in a way that made her whole body shake. And yet it was only his mouth doing that. _Only his mouth._

The night he fell though, the night her heart seemed to violently stop as his body sagged and fell backward, as she watched his blue usually full of life, lifeless eyes fall closed, as he hit the hard gym floor with too loud a boom, she felt her body shake. _Was he okay?_ He had to be okay. He just had to be…_had to be._ She sighed with relief as he appeared at her bedroom door. He tried to explain why he came without invitation, but her arms just found his tired body and held him, supported him.

Her body was small; her shortness prevented other things, but that night she held him up. She did her best to anyway, caressing his cold cheeks…bringing her forehead against his weak one. She lowered him to her bed, helped him take his shirt off, and with a massaging hand over his temple, helped him to sleep. It didn't take long for it to come. His exhaustion was in his tired breaths. She watched him most of the night. She evaded her own sleep as much as she could to make sure he was okay. She watched over him. And remembered his words of earlier, that she was what mattered to him…that even as he fell, he thought of her.

It was a power he brought to her with those words, a sudden power. She'd always been just Haley, Haley James, youngest daughter of Lydia and Jimmy James, best friend of Lucas Scott, _adopted_ daughter of Karen Roe, patient tutor, most of the time Straight A student, Karen's Café Waitress. She was ordinary. She was…nothing unique. Not in her mind…not in her heart, not until him. He told her he needed her. Not that he liked her, wanted her, admired her. He NEEDED her. No one had ever really needed her before. No one had ever desired her so greatly. No one cherished her before so deeply, but he did. With each day they spent together, he treated her more and more special. He would risk being late to class to run to her locker, meet her, kiss her quickly, press her against it gently, and then just leave her…with that lingering kiss-memory on her lips…every kiss making her shake.

It was too powerful. She started to worry, started to scare, and so she decided she'd do what he wanted. She'd leave school early some days, she'd even risk her perfect record. But when she showed him her first bad grade, he put a stop to it all right away. She had feared that moment he would tell her he didn't really want to be with her anymore. She'd feared he'd tired of it, grown bored. It would have made sense. He'd grown bored of every relationship before, even the one with the girlfriend he had for one year. She'd been ready to hear those heavy words from him, scared at how they would make her feel. But they never came. Instead, he told her that, that initial crush on her had nothing to do with him wanting her to change, to be someone she wasn't. He wanted her the way she was, who she showed him that first time they kissed. He didn't want her to be reckless to satisfy him. He didn't want her to pretend to be something she wasn't, to please him. The way she dressed, the way she wore her lack of makeup, the way she cared about her studies and worked hard at the café, _that was her._ And he respected that. He had no intention of ever changing that.

He hadn't known then…or maybe he had…maybe he knew before she even knew, there was something inside her that he was bringing out with each word of affection, each caress of her hair, each touch of her face and body. It was a side of her she'd never even known existed, one that confused her and yet excited her at the same moment. And with his acceptance, his simple acceptance of who she was, he was bringing that part, that side of her, to birth.

Her confidence grew with every day, and it departed with every day. One part blooming, the other part desecrating. It was terrifying and wondrous all at the same time. She tried to pay no mind to it though as she felt him needing her. He needed her as he moved away from his parents. And that was what she was good at, giving to people. All her life she had given and given and given. Selfishness wasn't in her vocabulary…until him. Until he taught her to want to do things for herself, to have her own ambitions, to believe in herself. He taught her that. She wondered now as she lay in this guest room, this empty room, if he even realized that. Did he know she hadn't been the only tutor in this relationship?

That with each time he needed her, he lingered for her, he kissed her with desperation, she grew stronger, more powerful. And she grew further away too from the organized existence she had always believed in. She was entering chaos with him. A chaos she thrilled at, and yet also terrified at. It was too new. It was too soon. But to stop it…to end it, would mean to let him go. And that was a thought she couldn't even consider. She couldn't even explain it, she couldn't comprehend it, what he brought to her life by his plan, his plan he abandoned early on as he told her, after she learned of its existence. He told her it had been a plan at first, but it never had lasted. It had died almost the moment he conjured it up. She'd made it die, with her kiss, with her beauty.

Beauty. She'd never thought of herself as beautiful before him. She'd never looked at herself in the mirror and smiled mildly at what she saw, a beautiful woman. But he made her feel that way. Did he talk of beauty…did he tell her in clear words she was beautiful? _Rarely_. The night of their wedding he whispered it against her breast as his lips found a spot of her body that cried out for his touch…for his raining of kisses. And another day…a day when he brought her somewhere she needed to be, he'd told her then.

It didn't matter though he didn't voice it often. It was in his tone. It was in his eyes. The most beautiful deep blue eyes she'd ever seen. They swam with emotion as they delved into her. It was in his touch…his fingers finding the inches of her skin that sang at the feel of him. It wasn't in words…no…a few times maybe, but it was mostly in his _feeling_, the feeling he had for her.

And she shared that feeling, With just a look back then, what seemed ages ago, she'd given him her quiet okay of understanding, her silent nod, when he returned to his basketball. She'd seen in his eyes he knew why she didn't want him to return. He read the worry. And he answered her with the gentlest look on his face. He'd be okay. It would be okay. He asked her to trust him in that hallway, without a single word uttered from his lips, he asked her to please understand why he had to do…what he was doing. And without a single word from her own lips, she responded, with her face, her eyes, telling him simply… _okay…_

As the power grew, so did the confusion. She swam uncertainly in it. And when it scared her too much she clung to him, she kissed him and helped him with his problems, feeling the way he held back for her sake. He knew from the start she'd never been with anyone, that way he had for years just kind of thrown out. He knew it was something she couldn't let go of easily, and he respected that, he seemed to love that.

Love. It would come after tears of nearly losing her best friend, a night he simply held her and let her cry, cry until she fell asleep in the safe harbor of his arms. His arms…such big strong arms. He was tall, so much taller than her. On nights when she cried like she did that one, she was so thankful for that, his physical strength as well as his inner.

She'd felt it the night he told her he loved her, after she marked her body with a tattoo all about him. That decision had been one she'd barely pondered. She just walked into a shop one day, told the people what she wanted, and gripped the seat hard as the needle dug through her skin, as his permanent mark was etched into her body. His surprise at that mark, had surprised her. He didn't seem to like it. Or he seemed…intimidated by it. She didn't understand. She once again felt he might decide that it wasn't right, that it would not be right for them to stay together, until he told her, simply, with no fanfare, no bells, no rainbow in the sky, just a bus bench, a night lantern overhead, both of them wearing jackets and simple clothing, he told her he loved her. And the stars in the sky danced at that moment. Her heart sang out. As she excitedly replied in kind, as she felt him holding her so close as he kissed her with love…with love now expressed from his lips to hers.

And then it grew more, the power, the change, the start of a part of her she never knew of, wasn't sure she liked, wasn't sure she was comfortable with. She knew he needed her, but did he realize…she needed him? _She needed him._ It was too strong a feeling. She'd never felt this way before, so excited about what was to come, and so fearful of it. So unsure one moment, and so perfectly sure the next. She'd never…needed anyone like she needed him. Her party, he told her assuredly afterward, that it was only the start. There was a lot more to come. He knew. He knew even that night, it seemed, she sang to him. He'd listened that night, then reached for her and held her close, whispering _'thank you'_ and that she had a gift she didn't even seem to realize. But now he knew. _He knew._

She hadn't believed him. She hadn't cared. It didn't matter. Her life was simple. It always had been. To pursue anything like that, what she did that night for just a temporary moment, would be selfish. And she wasn't that.

Then he asked her…he asked her to be his wife. She sort of laughed in shock at first, but no laughter passed from his lips. He told her he meant it. He loved her and she was his family now…_his family._ She was it. She looked into his eyes, realizing it was true. He had made her his family. It was such a power. It was such a burden. It was such a thing that demanded so much of her. But it didn't matter. Because she loved him. She embraced his soul in her heart, in her own soul. It was easy to tell him then after that, that yes…she would marry him. It was easy to stand with him in front of the oceans and tell him she would embrace him for eternity.

It was heaven to be carried in his arms into their home…_their home._ She felt tears fall from her face now as she thought of their home. He'd sold it. She looked around the empty room and tried to push the thought away. It was too painful. She wanted to remember being in their bedroom that night, him tentatively telling her once more he didn't expect anything. She was his wife and he'd wait for any time she needed for that. He hadn't married her for sex. He married her for love. He expected nothing. She was his wife now. He respected her, he never wanted to hurt her, he cherished her. It had been easy after all those times of patience from him, easy after his heartfelt declaration that he would never push her. She'd laughed and told him things would definitely _happen_ that night.

And they had, as the laughter ended, and the emotion took over. The feelings of passion, of love. She remembered the way he brought her back against his chest…his fingers pulling slowly down on the zipper of her dress…her own hands reaching up to unclothe the top part of his body…falling to the bed in each other's arms, falling gently into its warmth, exploring, learning of one another. The strength in his body…the heat of it as he gave to her something she'd never felt before, never even knew could exist, as her cries reached his lips that kissed her to not let the cries escape. As he looked down into her eyes and made sure his wife was okay, that she was crying out with release of ecstasy, not pain. It hadn't taken him that long to see the latter was not even a possibility. Her face showed him plainly, the shaking and tremoring of her body against the shaking and tremoring of his, showed him…he brought to her only paradise. In their bedroom together they found it…they found heaven.

She crossed her arms over her body softly now as she remembered the days after, going back to school and him walking her to class every day. Getting up in the morning and battling for the bathroom mirror, because truth be told, he spent more time at it than she did.

He was wonderful, but her husband could be so vain for a guy sometimes. It would make her laugh and shake her head at him as he admired himself one more time in the mirror. She liked to throw towels on his head, sometimes the towel she had previously been wearing. That always made them late for whatever. Because he always gave chase. He always cornered her in their bedroom…and their bodies always found at that moment in between giggles and sighs and moans…heaven again and again. At least people had seemed to understand those first months. At the café as she'd walk in fifteen minutes late, Karen would shake her head…before she winked.

They were newlyweds. They were making up for lost time…they were just so much in love.

As she felt that love she didn't think of herself until he kept encouraging her to do so.

She looked now to see the way her hands were positioned over the top part of her body, placed there in a way that made her think of him touching her, caressing her. She sighed and lay on her side. It was too painful…the memory of his touch was too strong and powerful.

She thought back once more to how he encouraged her. He kept telling her to pursue her music. He did a few things behind her back. He bought her that keyboard. _He shattered that keyboard._ She didn't know for sure what happened. She only knew the keyboard no longer existed. The picture board of their wedding had died in a fire too…its final resting place after it had already been destroyed, torn apart.

But before then, he had lovingly given her that keyboard, and she'd play it right underneath that picture board. One night she even sang to him his favorite song. She sang it as he lay on the couch after a tough day of work and school. She watched her beautiful husband fall asleep to the sound of her voice, and she covered him with a blanket, then quietly lifted that blanket, scooted underneath it, and pressed her body against her husband's, finding sleep quickly too. _Finding…peace._

Peace hadn't been there though when he kept encouraging her. She tried to get him to stop. She was afraid of it, not just afraid to sing, but afraid of what it would all mean. She had this terrible feeling something would change with it. She had this fear still of that change, that chaos she had entered when he entered her life. Chaos of ecstasies and chaos of fears.

He convinced her though, that sometimes jerk Chris made her angry and so she did it. She sang, and the world drifted away. The room was gone. It was just her and her keyboard. It was just them. She opened her eyes, dazed at the roar of applause, but her eyes only seeked one person. She smiled as she saw him, smiling so proudly for her. His smile…his sweet gentle smile. Not his smirk. But his beautiful smile.

She came home late that night, excited by the music prospect now, and yet when she found herself in their bedroom, saw him sleeping with his basketball actually in his hands, she teared, one of them falling down her face. She pushed away the keyboard and quickly undressed, undressed to nothing. She just wanted to feel her husband's body and nothing else.

She lay down next to him and like that night on the couch, only now more desperately, pressed her body into his, wrapping her arms around his sides, lifting them underneath his shirt to just feel his heated skin. She lay with him, feeling his slight stirring after minutes, feeling him start to wake. She wasted no time, climbing on top and raining kisses down his face, lifting his shirt and placing them over his stomach. She heard him moan and then felt him roll their bodies over the other way. And like so many wonderful nights before…this night feeling so desperate though and needed…they became one…over and over.

She should have known now that with her new power, the power he had given her, bringing to birth the part of her she'd never known until he entered her life so chaotically, she should have known…that night had been a sign. The desperation had been for reason. He'd asked her about it that night after they made love the first time. Asked her tenderly if she was okay. Because she was shaking. She shakily whispered _"yes…now please just love me again…"_

And it was mere seconds before she felt him enter her once more. She closed her eyes in pained ecstasy for a part of her heart knew…

Something was coming. Something that would make her choose. Her heart knew, but it didn't dare whisper it yet to her mind.

Her mind would find out though. Soon she'd have the choice. He gave her one too. He listened to her tell him of a kiss of regret, a kiss she had no idea how it could have come, because it wasn't wanted, it was rejected. It was ugly and unwelcome. She'd pulled away as fast as she could. Maybe some wouldn't believe that, but she had. Its first moments had only made her feel shock. Her body stilled…frozen. Before it reacted.

It wasn't his kiss…it didn't make her shake…_it made her body freeze._

It was forbidden. It was an invasion.

She feared he'd hate her for that kiss, but his reaction, though pained, was firm. He loved her. He wanted her. He'd married her that day promising her forever because he meant that. Those words were as vital to him as to her. He would live with the fact, that kiss happened…that ugly thing. But one thing. _She had to stay._ Because if she did leave…he'd not be there when she came back. He'd leave.

She felt horror touch her heart at that moment, as her body shook with the nightmare of it. _He was giving her an ultimatum._ He was telling her to choose. How could he do that to her? Didn't he know? Didn't he see? She hadn't wanted it, this change, this chaos, this part that hadn't existed before. She hadn't wanted to learn what selfishness was. She had loved being blissfully ignorant of it. But he taught her it. He taught her to do things for herself. He taught her to do what she needed for her. And now…now she could only have what she wanted so desperately, what she craved, what she desired…if she left. But if she left…she would lose…what she didn't just crave, what she didn't just desire, _but what she needed…what her body and soul needed._

Even as the fear and screams of _no_ hit her, she made her choice. She left him what he'd given her on that dock, and she left him. She walked out. Praying desperately he'd not keep his word. That he would decide he loved her, and that he would understand she did what he had only helped her do…pursue her music. Pursue something for just herself.

She hadn't really thought of it then, of how just selfish it was. She hadn't wanted to think of it. _How could it be selfish?_ It wasn't about another person. Another man. She'd made sure he knew that before she left. She told him over and over…it's not that…her heart knew that. Kisses that made her body freeze were alien invasions. They weren't the ecstasy of her husband making her _shake_. This wasn't about that. This was about the music…that he helped her see in herself. This was about what he taught her, to do something for herself, to pursue her dream.

But that was only her excuse. Sure he had wanted her to pursue it, but not by leaving him, not by allowing a kiss by some person that had no respect for their vows. He'd given up something he wanted, something about his basketball dream for her. He gave it up because he didn't want to leave her. And yet now she'd left him.

She didn't think of if though. She thrilled when he came to visit her. She thrilled and yet…the bit of selfishness, that part of her she'd never known, continued. It was a piece of her makeup now. Once one learned how to be selfish, they never forgot. She couldn't turn it off. She told him she loved him and wanted to be with him and then she told him that maybe they had been too young. Her words were those of a confused child, not a woman who made a vow to her husband. They were ones of desperation and misunderstanding. She loved him. She didn't want him to leave, but she also didn't want to give this up. She didn't know if she could.

And then it happened. After he left…after another long night once more of touring, of singing on stage, she answered the phone with a heavy sigh. She was tired. She just wanted to go to sleep. She didn't want to talk to anyone. _"Hello…"_

She'd heard the voice and sighed once more. Lifting her gold bracelet covered wrist to one of her large hoop earrings, to a heavily made up face, she closed her eyes tiredly. _"If this is about…well he won't listen to me."_

_"Haley…he was in an accident today. He's in the hospital."_

The gold hoop earring that had been in her hand fell to the floor with a heavy clang. Her hand wandered up to a chain around her neck and held onto the object with a strangled hold. Her breath left her lungs. Her heart shook. _"Oh God…N-no..nnnooo-_

She heard him cut through her broken mutterings, his voice calming and gentle. The voice of her best friend, telling her about her husband. His brother. _"It's okay Haley. He's okay. He will be. He's sleeping now. They did surgery-_

She cut through now, her heart tremoring so hard she thought it would break out from her chest, but she tried to hold onto those words…she used them for comfort. _'he's okay…' "Surgery?"_

_"Yeah…but he's alright. He hurt his leg, the side of his body pretty badly. And they had to stop the bleeding. It was internal. But he's all right now. He just…Haley he-_

She shook, bringing the phone to her breast, tears falling down her face, exiting her eyes with stabs of agony and regret. Oh God…but he was okay. Oh God…he was in pain and she wasn't there to help him, to hold him, to love him like a wife should. He could have needed her and she wasn't there for him. She was on stage singing another stupid song!

_"Haley…Haley are you still there? Hales come on."_

She lifted the phone again to her ear, getting up with it and starting to move quickly over the area she was living in now, another empty homeless hotel room. _"I'm here…I'm coming…I'm coming. I have to see him…I have to…"_ Her voice broke. She clung to her stomach in horror at all that was happening. She let out a small cry of relief and pain and talked in the phone again. _"Lucas…what happened…how did this happen?"_

She waited as the silence stilled the air in the room. He didn't say anything at first. She stopped her movements and waited, nearly crying out with impatience and desperation before he finally spoke once more. _"We were visiting his uncle's race track. We had a race. Nathan stayed back the whole time pretty much. But then when we were supposed to bring the cars in…he kept going. He just…"_

She waited, hearing something eerie in her best friend's voice. It terrified her. _"What, Lucas?"_

_"He just kept going Haley…right into the wall. He turned right into it."_

The fear stilled in her heart. It froze. _"On accident…right Lucas?"_

He said nothing. For a long time. She demanded it from him again. _"Lucas?!"_

Silence, and then… _"Yeah…I guess it was. I don't know. He just…"_

She listened to her best friend's voice tremble with emotion, for his brother. _At least he had his brother._ She hadn't been there though. She hadn't been there for him when he needed her. She had been too busy looking over her fricking set list. _"Lu-cas?"_ She asked now with a voice that shook violently. OH God…he couldn't have. He wouldn't. Not him. He was too strong…too…_the pain in his eyes as he saw her that last time._ No…

_"He hit hard Haley. He was driving fast. Too fast. He knew. He knew how to control it…but still he hit hard. Just…you just need to come home Haley."_

She closed her eyes, whispering in between the sobs that were starting to enter her body, but had yet to escape. _"I am…I-I'll see you soon."_

She let the phone fall to the floor. She clutched her heart in agony and fell to the floor, curling her body into a fetal position and quietly crying like the rain…her pain.

And all her body could do was…

_SHAKE._

She remembered it now as the tears fell down her face once more at the memory. She remembered his call and how he told her…his voice…she had felt her heart fill at it, until he told her not to come home. He told her not to come back. Dressed in her black, her high heeled shoes, her looped earrings that flashed along with the flash of her bracelets and rings having nothing to do with her marriage, she stood lonely in the middle of the airport, her bags around her. But she had no home to come to. He didn't want her to come back. She wanted to, but he didn't want her to. She had looked around her…at everything in utter confusion. She was lost. _Completely lost._ He didn't want her.

She returned to her hotel room, once again curling into that fetal position on the floor, but this time she couldn't cry. She just lay there until sleep finally took her over. And woke in the morning with pain in her side at lying on that cold hard unyielding floor. It was a pain she deserved though she thought. She deserved the loneliness. She deserved his not wanting her to come back.

She retuned to the tour and that night for her last song quietly made her way to the piano. She whispered to her audience she wanted to sing a song that…. _"This is for someone I love…This is Elsewhere…"_

She closed her eyes like she had that night in the café that felt like home, that was home with him sitting right near her, listening as she shared with him her voice. She started the song, whispering the words this night for her audience, but she pretended they were gone. She pretended only he was there. He was her true audience. He was her love. As it had that night, her voice climbed with emotion. An emotion she only felt singing this song. She forgot the people around her. She didn't hear the soft strums of the guitars. She didn't hear the drums quietly beating and following her fingers caressing the keys of the piano.

That piano became his body. Her fingers were touching him and caressing him. Not cold hard keys. It was moving her skin over his skin. The song was crying out to him that she loved him and only him. That she missed him and ached for him. That the music wasn't enough. _Oh God she had been wrong._ So wrong. It wasn't enough. She wouldn't be on this stage now if it hadn't been for him. She wouldn't be singing. She wouldn't be crying out the love she had for him.

It was no longer a song. It was no longer a performance. It was words of need to him. To shout and scream to him…she was wrong. And she was sorry. There was one belief in her life, one heaven that only she and him understood. That only they lived in. It was there in moments they spoke. It was there in silent moments. It was there in times of laughter. It was there when he intimately caressed her body with his lips…it was there…it was in her now. There was no audience. There were no lights. There was no band. There was no stage.

This was her heart to his heart. _Nothing more…nothing less._

She didn't even look as the song not even quite ending yet, the audience stood, tears on nearly every face in that auditorium. Her band staring at her in wonder. Even him…the one who had kissed her and made her body freeze, shaking his head and realizing something now that he hadn't thought of before. All in that room just stood there in silence before the thunderous applause started, the screams reached the stage, the shouts of appreciation for what she had just shared with them. As they watched her sit there still with her eyes closed, her makeup stained with tears, her hair shadowing her face almost entirely, covering it, protecting it.

For the first time in her life she didn't respond to her audience's approval. She only waited one more moment before she walked off the stage, her head down, and reached with desperation her dressing room, falling to the floor as she reached it, closing the door behind her and then sobbing brokenly against it. She wanted to go home.

She had no home.

He didn't want her home.

She left her home.

She abandoned her home.

She left her soul back there.

Until tonight.

Until she finally would decide later, after her best friend came…after…she'd go back home.

She'd go back to him.

And with that decision, felt once more, her body shake.

~~**~~

His eyes continued to search the ceiling above as he lay still with no sleep. He didn't know how to sleep that well without her. It was just a fact. It was why so many nights he had made the excuse of the parties to lay in bed with her. Because with her he could actually sleep. She did this thing…this sweet thing she'd done the first time he slept in her bed, after taking the drugs.

She lay next to him and gently, softly, began to stroke his hair, moving the strands sweetly with each movement, just stroking them back away from his face. If one fell over his eyes she would quietly move it back. After they were married and he knew of her singing he would sometimes ask her quietly to sing too, and she would. She would caress his senses with her voice, and then they'd fall asleep together. He learned it from her too, how to caress her gently. He knew it somewhat before her, but he mostly knew now what he did from being with her, making her his wife. On his sleepless nights that sometimes still came after marriage, she would do it again…stoke his hair with her fingers. And he'd sleep. On her sleepless nights, rare, but sometimes there, he would gently return the favor, even stroking her back, moving his fingers back and forth and keeping her safely in his arms.

He loved her. He loved her then. He still loved her. He told her that tonight. When she entered his room. He told her the truth. He wanted to deny it, but he couldn't. He'd felt his last bit of resistance against her, leave him as she expressed it was always him…as she stood there in her bright tank and pajama pants, her hair up, so simple and yet so beautiful…he couldn't let it not escape his lips.

_"Hales…"_ He had stopped the formal command of her name, stopped calling her Haley and just called out with affection and need, the name he called her fondly before. That he had learned from his brother. It was what only those close to her called her. Mainly only him, her parents, her sisters and brothers, and her best friend. He called it out and watched as she didn't hesitate. She ran to be with him, climbing on top of his body. And his arms didn't need direction. The moment she began to run, he lifted them in full invitation, ready to embrace her body to his. He closed his arms tightly as he felt that body on top of him, his body moaning at the feel of something it had been without for too long. He heard her cry, felt her face fall between his neck and shoulder, and then felt their kiss just begin. No telling where it truthfully started. Their lips just knew each other so well. Their lips just followed the well that brought them life. The lips of each other. And the kiss was ecstasy and agony at the exact same moment. He painfully pushed at her, but warning his body to be gentle. He'd never hurt her. Never use her. Never take out his anger on her. Never unleash his pain to make her be burdened with it.

He brokenly told her they couldn't do this…that she needed to leave. He hated having to tell her that. But he couldn't keep it back. He couldn't be with her like this now, because his heart would give in, but she needed to know. _Yes he loved her._ He always loved her. Forever was forever. He meant that then…he meant that now.

But it was like a knife stabbing through his heart when she left him…it was his heart being shattered. And he couldn't take it. He couldn't go through that again. It hurt too much. They hurt each other too much.

And…the worst part. After just still loving her. He didn't trust her. He had before, but then she left him. His heart was still shaken at the memory of her leaving him. He couldn't go through that again because it would kill him. It would kill it all. It was too soon. He couldn't take it.

He'd practically begged her to get away, but it didn't take much. As much as he was horrified at causing her pain, she was horrified at causing it to him. He felt her move away and his body screamed out, _no, I need her, make her come back_. But his heart shut down the urgings and yearnings in his body. It shut it down because it couldn't go through it again. He heard her brokenness about forever. And he let her know firmly, yet painfully, forever still was. His love still was. It had never ended. It never would. He was just too afraid to believe her now. When she left him she took away that Elsewhere world she had shown him that night she first sang for him. He had wanted her to sing…he had wanted it…he just hadn't known it would take her away from him. He hadn't known that she'd leave him.

He'd listened to the words she'd told him before along with words she told him now. All mixed up…all meaningful. The music had never meant as much as him. The music was no substitute for him. It was hollow without him. She loved only him.

He listened and then watched as she left the room…he remembered that now, as he continued to stare at the ceiling.

As he continued to find no sleep…no peace.

~~**~~

Someone came before she made her decision to come home…someone who made that decision the final one in her heart. She had sung another song that she delivered with only half meaning the night it happened. Elsewhere was put away once more in the tunnels of her heart. Tunnels that lay too open and exposed now. She sang another song without much meaning. She returned to her dressing room, looking blankly at herself in the mirror for a moment, putting on more lipstick. Tour party tonight. She didn't really want to go, but whatever. She'd get hassled if she didn't. And what did it matter? She had no home anymore.

_"Nice performance tonight…"_

She heard the words and didn't even look back to see who was there. She didn't care. She got told often enough she did a good performance. That was fine. She politely expressed a _'thank you'_ thinking that would be it. It was an adult voice, an elderly voice. Usually it was kids, but once in awhile it was adults. They expressed their appreciation for her singing and then left. She reached over for a picture, starting to sign it. Noncommittally she uttered, _"Here…I'll give you my autograph…thank you for coming toni-_

The elderly voice cut her off though. _"It was nice, but something was missing."_

The words bothered her. She got ready to turn around, but some strength of air in the room stopped her as the voice told her _'no.'_

_"No…don't turn around. Just listen to me child. You sing on that stage like you are happy, but in your layers of gold and clothes that sparkle, you are not whole. There is a hole in you and it's there when you're on stage. It's there now. Don't deny love child. Don't fear it. Fight for it with your last breath if you must."_

She had no idea why she was saying it, but the words just came out of her lips as she talked to a complete stranger, told that stranger the truth. _"He told me not to come back."_

_"And yet you listen? You listen to his mind speak? You, who know his heart? Have you become that selfish child? Oh now don't tear at my words…don't feel you must defend. Your selfishness is human dear. It's normal. But your heart is breaking here. It's tearing child. And you must know…his breaks too. Listen to that. Not his words. Listen to his heart. Don't deny it. Don't deny your Elsewhere..everyone who learns of love as I did…as you have…has their own Elsewhere…their heaven. In this world and the one beyond. Don't deny that together you shake. Don't deny love child…don't deny it… __fight…"_

She finally looked up in the mirror and gasped. The face…that face…she knew that face, but no…it couldn't be…it wasn't possible.

She turned away from the mirror and looked back finally. But there was no one there. In the moment she had turned away from the mirror the face disappeared. The person who she had seen through that mirror.. She looked around with desperation, searched the room…but nothing. Only the door…the door now stood open. Open…

She rushed through it, searching the people in the short hallway with wild eyes. She asked had anyone seen a woman…petite…curls of white hair around her face…an old woman. Everyone just told her no…stared…

She grimaced and went back to her room, shut the door, locked it. She stared at the mirror…looked into it. _That woman._ She had looked just like a picture she had…of her great grandmother, her dad's grandmother. She'd died before she was born. But she had loved looking at pictures of her as a little girl, pictures of her with her great grandfather. They'd married in high school. They'd never divorced. After a long life, they died about a week apart….him first…her next. Her grandmother told her that she believed she had simply died of a broken heart. Died because life without him was no heaven. It was too lonely.

She returned to the mirror. She stood at it and stared at her reflection, not knowing it anymore. Not knowing the girl who stood in piles of makeup, hoop earrings, gold clattering against her wrists…shirts too black and so the sparkles faded. She wiped away her falseness and whispered into the mirror…

_"Great Grandma…thank you…"_

She remembered now that night as she lay in bed restlessly. She just wanted to feel him again, his arms, strong and solid, his hands placed firmly on her back, kneading at the top she wore. She could still feel the heat they instilled, the sensitive nerves of her inner core…being brought to…

_Shake…_

~~**~~

He tortured his heart with the thoughts of her as he lay there, wishing he could just get up and go to her, love her. He wanted to so badly, but his mind was so afraid his heart would be wounded again. He just wanted her, but he couldn't…couldn't…

It hadn't even been the kiss. Sure that had hurt, but it hadn't been that. She was honest with him about that. She told him in their home. She admitted it and then held him close. He could take that.

The music though had been the knife jabbing at his side, cutting into him. Until she whispered tonight that it had never been more than him. That lessened the pain a little…but only a little…just a little…

He closed his eyes, opened them again to see her climbing over his body. Oh it was just the memory, but it was so vivid, so real. He could still smell her scent lingering in the room, sweet and sensual. He could remember kissing her back and running his hands over her backside, wanting to move beyond her top, wanting to pull it off her, seeing her hanging over him, her face determined and weak. Weak for him. Her face ready to fill with tears. He'd held her and moaned, letting her know this was torture for him too. Letting her know he loved her still. He wouldn't deny the truth.

He'd felt her body against his, but missed the brushing of her hair. Those long silk-like cinnamon waves, just a touch lighter now, that when they had sex…when they joined their bodies and hearts, sometimes fell to tickle his chest. But her hair was up…up…

He'd wanted to release it. Watch it cascade down over her body, her breasts. He wanted to remove her shirt and just feel her against him, feel the touch of her skin again, but all he could afford to linger his fingers over was the part of her backside that wasn't covered by her tank.

That night though…that night of their wedding it was more…so much more…

She'd stopped in the middle of the room, standing there. He'd gone to her and caressed her neck with his lips. That was one nice thing about her hair up. He could get to her neck freely, but he didn't mind having to run his fingers through her locks of hair like silk to kiss her…to run his tongue over her skin.

_"Oh…Nathan…"_

He'd heard her moan. He smiled before he closed his eyes and just held the back of her body against the front of his, both of them still fully clothed. _"You looked so beautiful today…your hair…but I prefer it like this…"_ He whispered sensuously into her ear, pulling at the clips and the precious little white flower like bow until it all was gone, and her hair was released from their grip. With care he put the bow down on the shelf that stood near their bed. _Their bed._ This was to be their bed tonight. _Forever._

He heard her moan as he ran his fingers over the side of her body, then pulled at her zipper, bringing the dress down to her waist. He sighed with appreciation at the swell of her breasts now only enclosed by the white lacy bra she was wearing. They'd gone a little far sometimes…but never this far.

He sighed again as she turned around in his arms and kissed him deeply, her lips pulling at his before she removed his jacket and shirt, leaving him naked from the waist. And then they just stood there…before she started to reach for her bra.

But he brought his hand over hers. _"No…let me?"_

He asked her it, waiting for her response. She only nodded her head. They stood again, knowing now they were entering a place they'd never entered before, but had wanted to for so long, had needed to…needed to now.

He smiled tenderly at her before he kissed her again and again…on her mouth…her skin…over the white lacy material. His hands touched to feel what that lace covered and she gasped at that first feel, that first cup of his fingers, before she nodded her head again. He smiled once more and then reached for the hook, removing it entirely. And just stared…this was his wife. This was his forever. _This was their…forever._

This was the only woman who made him…_shake_.

_"I love you…"_

_"I love you too…"_

They backed up to the bed. He lay her down on it tenderly and then lay down on top, bracing his hands on the mattress to not put his full weight against her. And when his lips found her breasts…_he felt her shake_.

But it was only the beginning of their first night as husband…her husband. She his wife. As their married bliss began…

Before the nightmare of the past months. He shivered at it now, painfully closing down the memory of that first time and simply staring at the cold uncaring ceiling.

Before finally his weary eyes closed.

~~**~~

_"There is a place for us __  
__That no else can enter __  
__It is a place that holds no secrets __  
__Only beauty, peace, understanding…"_  
~Karen Schaefer~

~~**~~

Footsteps echoed quietly in the hallway. Her hand used the wall for guidance in the darkness. She passed one room after another. Too many in this house. She had complained about that the first time she came and accidentally ended up in the wrong room. He'd laughed and tickled her on his bed after he found her and led her back to his actual room. They were supposed to be looking for Sheryl Crow tickets. She stopped him quickly, remembering her tickets. He'd only smirked.

They hadn't gotten the tickets. But that wasn't because of his tickling…not entirely anyway. They had been trying to get them most of the night…and other parts of the night…

Well kissing was possibly as good as a Sheryl Crow ticket, maybe better. And kissing him was leagues better.

She lifted her hand to a door now, the door she knew. And she quietly opened it, the sight of what she saw bringing a smile to her face…tears to her eyes.

He was s

eeping, his hand tucked under his head as he lay on his side, his chest mostly exposed except for an arm that crossed near it. His breaths were slow and even. But it looked like he'd kicked his covers around many times before he got to this place. Including his main blanket entirely off his body and simply wrapped around his ankles.

She walked slowly more into the room, her bare feet padding over his plush carpet. She lifted at the blanket and started to drape it over his body, but his ankle was too much on top of one part. She crawled up the end of the bed, gently lifting his ankle away. He stirred and she waited, watching him shift his position to one where his hand moved more to his side, exposing his chest entirely, bared as he usually slept. But something…something new was there. Something that made tears fall down her face now. She lifted a shaking hand, her finger tracing over it, a scar, from the accident, right under the lift of his chest, right there. Lucas had told her they'd had to operate. That he had bled internally.

She gently traced her fingers over that scar and then looked up to his face, her hand coming to fall down to the bed. He looked so peaceful in sleep, so young, so vulnerable. She'd thought that the night she watched him sleep in her bed that first time, when he'd been hurting still from the drugs and the pressure of his dad.

But she knew his strength too. His beauty. Like he'd shown her that time shortly after her parents left, when he told her they'd go see them. Days later there they were spending time with her parents on some mountain they had driven up to.

That night she had gone outside and looked up at the stars. And then she felt his arms wrap around her from behind.

_"Okay Hales?"_

She smiled at the sweet concern in his voice and nodded her head. _"Yes…it's just so nice here."_

He seemed not as impressed, but he did seem to like a whole lot holding her. _"Yeah…"_

_"Thank you for bringing me here Nathan. I just…I needed to see them."_

He turned her around then to face him. She felt his hand touch her cheek, his fingers stroking her skin. _"I know…and your parents are cool. You needed this. I know you miss them. I just wanted to make you happy."_

_"You always make me happy."_

He had just stared at her, before he brought her tightly into his arms and whispered… _"I feel pretty lucky to be with you…you're so beautiful Haley…"_

She remembered it now and smiled down at him, whispering quietly in the stillness of the room. _"You called me beautiful then Nathan. The second time."_ She looked at the scar again, and covered her face at the sobs that were breaking out. _"I'm s-sorry…I'm so s-sorry…"_ Not even thinking, just needing this, she lay down on the bed next to him, bringing her hands up to his face and stroking his hair. _"I love you…I love you and you made me happy every moment. I just wish…I wish I could have known then what I know now. I wanted the music. I still want it, but I didn't…Oh Nathan I never meant to hurt you. I never meant to break what we said that day we married…I'm so sorry…oh Nathan…Nathan…"_

She kissed his forehead and it brought his eyes to open.

He stared at her with weary shock. _"Haley?"_

She nodded her head, tears falling from her eyes. _"I couldn't sleep…not without you…"_

She heard him sigh…brokenly.

He stared at her…her last comment hurting and angering him. _"You seemed to do fine on the tour. I mean you didn't look that sleepy in that interview you did with…him."_

She only cried more, her face falling with shame.

He swallowed and reached for her tears, brushing them away from her face. _"You hurt me Hales…"_ He whispered with emotion. _"I don't trust you now. I just don't."_

She bit at her lip, wiping her last tears away. _"I know…I know. I'm sorry. And it was never about-_ She stopped herself. It wouldn't do to tell him again. He knew it wasn't about…him. He knew it had been about music, about the part he showed her inside herself she'd never known before him. It was about that. _"I just want to lay next to you Nathan. I just want to feel your warmth again. Nathan…please…"_

He swallowed once more, feeling a tightness in himself, a need, an ache…feeling moisture ebbing at his eyes, but he pushed it back with the pain cutting at him. _"No…Haley…can't…"_

She gently stopped him, placing her fingers on his lips before she slowly moved them away. _"I won't stay…not the whole night. Just a little while. Just a few moments Nathan. Just minutes Nathan. I know I hurt you but-_

He stopped her, bringing his hand up. _"It wasn't just you. I screwed up enough times too. But you're the one who left. You didn't stay to…weren't you happy Haley?"_

She swallowed that bit of his last words and shook her head back and forth vehemently. _"Oh yes…yes Nathan."_ Reading the vulnerability and questioning in his eyes, she reached for his face, touching it on both sides. _"Remember when I sang to you…you made me…you encouraged me to. Nathan you encouraged me to do it all…more than anyone. You made me find the music that's inside me and you made it something I could share with others. You bought me that keyboard."_

He turned away from her, a tightening of his jaw. _"I smashed that keyboard into the wall."_

She cried at that, her hand shaking as it sealed over her mouth. She'd known…just not really heard it from him. He broke it…on purpose. He made it break. _"It was you Nathan. You who made me see that there was something I could do for myself. You set me free."_

He choked on his next words. This was too painful. It was too late. He wanted to go back to sleep…even that ugly sleep where he woke up every five minutes it seemed wasn't as agonizing as this. Was it? _"From me?"_

The pain filled his face at that question. She shook her head back and forth, kissing his forehead three times tenderly, embracing his face. _"Oh no Nathan…no…not you. From me. From who I was before you. So set and orderly and so…afraid to share…really share who I might be inside. But I didn't think Nathan. I thought to understand that I would have to go on that tour and that I'd be happy. But I wasn't happy Nathan. I missed you…I missed you…"_

She brought her forehead against his now and he shook, with trembling hands holding her, his lips moving to kiss her again. He found hers and…and with darts of agony tore away from her. _"No…no Haley…can't…no…"_

She reacted to his pain, feeling it fill her heart and bringing it to rattle almost like it was falling apart. She moved back, but did not leave the bed, simply stayed near him. He said nothing. She didn't know what to say and so she…

Tenderly touching his cheek she began to sing to him…

_"I love the time and in between __  
__the calm inside me __  
__in the space where I can breathe"_

She watched the shock in his face at her words…at her voice singing to him that song again. She tenderly smiled at him and for the first time saw a ghost of one on his lips. She continued…singing him her song for only him. Because like her Great Grandma had said. He was her _Elsewhere_. He was the love that made her _shake_.

_"I believe there is a distance I have wandered __  
__To touch upon the years of __  
__reaching out and reaching in __  
__holding out holding in"_

He watched her sing quietly and waited for the moment when her voice would rise like it had that first time she sang this song to him. He watched her with love he could not hide in his eyes. But looking into hers…he knew she wanted desperately to never take advantage of that. He knew. He felt it. He just feared still. He feared. And he knew she understood that. He knew she feared too. She'd been uncertain of him from the start. He'd always been certain of her, just not certain of himself. Now he was uncertain of her and she seemed to be so certain of him, just not certain of herself. Their roles were switched.

_"I believe __  
__this is heaven to no one else but me __  
__and I'll defend it as long as I can be __  
__left here to linger in silence __  
__if I choose to __  
__would you try to understand…"_

She watched his face, his blue eyes as she sang to him before she closed her own and let her voice rise, felt his hand come to touch hers and hold on. She relished the touch, needing it. Needing him. She only needed him now. It was so desperate. It was so terrifying. But what he could bring…how he could make her feel…she knew was an ecstasy that any pain would be worth…any fear.

He watched the emotion come to her face, watched it fill it as her eyes closed to the world. He felt the rising of her voice and closed his own eyes, only letting their linked hands be the one way they connected…other than that voice…her voice. It was a moment he was beginning to slowly realize. She sang to him now to show him…her passion for it…her ache in it had come from him. He'd shown her…he'd released her. Just as she had released him from his parents, maybe he had released her from her own insecurities and doubts, her reluctance to please herself.

_"I know this love is passing time __  
__passing through like liquid __  
__I am drunk in my desire…"_

She gently swept her hand over his face, tenderly getting him to open his eyes again. And she sang the next words straight to his face…smiling at him. Even as tears fell down her face.

_"I love the way you smile at me __  
__I love the way your hands reach out and hold me near…"_

He swallowed at his pain, tried to smile back at her, but he wasn't strong enough to yet. He remembered that day on the track, wanting to race into that wall…not knowing half of what he was doing, just wanting the pain to go away, and not really caring at the time how that happened. He just wanted it gone. So he'd only went faster and faster…faster til the memories finally turned to black. It all turned to black.

He shivered now.

She watched him with concern, her finger moving down over his chest…over the scar.

He stared at her. It was like she knew his thoughts. She knew him more than any human being and yet she left him…_she left him…_

She sang the last words…letting them cascade out of her mouth, seeing the reluctance in his eyes. She smiled tenderly at him and sang… _"Elsewhere…"_

He stared at her and then felt her fingers moving over his hair, Wearily he lay his head more securely against his pillow. He felt her fingers move over his eyes. He closed them and whispered… _"Haley…you can't stay…"_

She sighed, closing her eyes. _"I won't…I promise…"_

He almost cracked at that, let her know she'd already broken a promise, but he didn't want to hurt her. He didn't want to injure this moment. So he just nodded his head and felt it happening, her touch quickly finally bringing him to a real sleep…a peace he had only ever experienced with her.

She listened to the sound of his soft breathing…his sleep…and bent over, her lips reaching his scar and gently kissing the area. _"I love you…"_ She whispered against his skin. _"And I will help you trust me again…I will Nathan…I love you…"_

She felt him shake. She stared, trying to see if he was playing possum. Sometimes he seemed asleep and yet he really wasn't. He wasn't that deep of a sleeper anyway. He told her sometimes as a kid he had too many nightmares. And then basketball came and made him too riled up before a game that sleep just couldn't come.

She reached for the blanket and tenderly wrapped it around his body now, stilling the shaking of it. Her lips brushed over his hair. And she left him.

She left his room to the guest room she was staying in, laying down on the bed she would have to sleep in alone…

She whispered it into the night before she finally went to sleep. _"OH Nathan…you still make me shake…"_

A room of rooms away…he echoed her words before slumbering once more, this time thanks to her in peace.

_"You make me shake Haley…only you…"_

_Shake…_

They'd created it in each other's bodies from that first kiss…

To now…

What they could only hope and pray for…

Would be a new beginning.

_One where finally they would be…equal. __Shake…_

The End

_Elsewhere_ by Sarah McLachlan


End file.
